We are in the midst of a multi-essay series probing the general subject of “personal empowerment” and its surrounding limitations.  I began several essays ago with a piece on Patience, triggered by trying to understand my inability to get a decent night’s sleep.  That led to an essay on Coping Energy, which I planned to follow with a discussion around understanding what you really control and dealing with those limits.  If you understand what you control, you can use that knowledge to build your coping energy reserves, hopefully resulting in a good night’s sleep—our overall goal.  However, after much Muddling and Life Observing over the last couple of weeks, I determined that I must first spend some time talking about Perspective.

This essay is entitled Perspective Part I because there are two very different discussions I want to have around this topic.  Perspective impacts how you react to, judge and then respond to a situation.  Experience changes perspective, as does an understanding of history.  This is part of why, as you get older, you often don’t get rattled as much.  Your life experience of seeing how situations play out and/or the impact of decisions gives you insight to better roll with what life brings your way.  I will probe that some other time with respect to commonplace work or life issues.  Today I want to spend time on a subset of the “perspective” discussion, more focused on what we’re going through now and specifically as it relates to improving your coping energy reserves.

I started writing this piece on the morning after Thanksgiving.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute to work on the essay for this week, right?  But while I’ve actually been writing and rewriting this essay in my head for almost two weeks, I’ve been struggling with how to address this topic.  I added a paragraph on Perspective in the essay on Coping Energy because the two are so closely connected.  Since then, I’ve been intensely aware of how important it is to actively court your sense of perspective especially during trying times. 

I broach this topic because most people right now are emotionally exhausted, particularly those with a strongly developed sense of empathy.  We watch the COVID map and have seen the virus spread almost unchecked throughout the heartland of this country.  I’m watching the red and purple colors of high infection rates creep closer and closer to where I live and where those I love live.  We see the suffering on the news—the exhausted hospital workers, begging people to stay home and stop spreading the virus; the restaurant and small business owners close to going bankrupt who, in turn, are begging people to come out and spend some money with them; the long food lines; the homelessness; the personal bankruptcies.  Our impotent congress doesn’t help these feelings of anxiety.  Strongly empathic folks internalize all of this despair.  It’s easy to feel hopeless and get depressed, even when trying to help others less fortunate than you are.  No matter what you do, it can never be enough.  No wonder you just want to give up at times.  Will a broader sense of perspective actually help or is it just patronizing to even bring it up?

Let’s start by remembering that we are seeing a lot of suffering at this time thanks to the news media.  The reality is that suffering is not new, nor will it go away when the pandemic does.  We are just seeing it more often and more emphatically detailed.  This is a hard truth.  Those of you involved in your community know this for fact.  It is true that we will never fully alleviate need and suffering, although that as a goal is worthy of being held close.  What matters is what you as an individual can do.  You cannot make it all go away.  But you can do something.  This is where the “what do I control” discussion becomes important and why we will tackle that next time.   Also, remember that this pandemic will end.  I know this all seems endless and while we’re going through it everything seems chaotic and unpredictable.  But history shows that this will end and with promising vaccines progressing toward approval we can envision when that might happen.  Life will return to a new normal.  That new normal might approximate “old normal” for some; it will be a totally new normal for many.  But this time period will end, we will pick ourselves up and we will move on.  It will be easier for some than for others and there will be lingering, even lasting, effects.  But we will move forward.

With this perspective in mind, knowing that we are being bombarded by heartbreaking news but that we are still moving forward toward the end of this pandemic, what is it that you can actually DO? I implore you to first take care of yourself.  That is the primary rule of caretaking—you are no help to anyone else if you do not take care of yourself.  “Put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others.”  Ignore what’s going on outside of you for just a second and ask, “Am I ok?”  Are you eating well and exercising; maybe some meditation; trying to get enough sleep; getting a good belly laugh every day?  Part of taking care of yourself is helping others, of course.  Anyone who volunteers knows that.  But you can’t take care of others to the detriment of yourself. 

Now open up that window a little bit and ask, “Are those I love ok?”  They need you but they don’t need you (necessarily) to be a superhero.  They just need you to be you and to be in their lives.  I can’t say this too many times:  YOU ARE ENOUGH.  You, just you, just your beautiful self, just your beautiful flawed self, IS ENOUGH.  And that “you” is needed by those you love.  You don’t need to “do” anything special.  Just be there for and with them, as they are there for and with you—even if it is over the phone or Zoom.  I know you want to do more.  I know you are exhausted and tempted to just tune it all out.  Remember that it is enough to just be present with those you love. You can help those in need once you, yourself, are solid. 

Take some time and get grounded in all of that.  Then you can take that deep breath and wrestle with understanding what it is that you truly control and what to do with that information.  That’s how you’ll build your coping reserves, and we’ll get to that next time.